Types of interview
Interviews may be highly formalised and structured, using standardised questions for each research participant (often called a respondent) (Section 11.2), or they may be infor- mal and unstructured conversations. In between there are intermediate positions. One typology that is commonly used is thus related to the level of formality and structure, whereby interviews may be categorised as one of: * structured interviews; 
 * semi-structured interviews; 
 * unstructured or in-depth interviews. 
Another typology (Healey 1991; Healey and Rawlinson 1993, 1994) differentiates between: 
 * standardised interviews; 
 * non-standardised interviews. 
Robson (2002), based on the work of Powney and Watts (1987), refers to a different typology: 
 * respondent (participant) interviews; 
 * informant interviews. 
There is overlap between these different typologies, although consideration of each typology adds to our overall understanding of the nature of research interviews. 
Structured interviews use questionnaires based on a predetermined and ‘standardised’ or identical set of questions and we refer to them as interviewer-administered question- naires (Section 11.2). You read out each question and then record the response on a stan- dardised schedule, usually with pre-coded answers (Sections 11.4 and 12.2). While there is social interaction between you and the participant, such as the preliminary explanations that you will need to provide, you should read out the questions exactly as written and in the same tone of voice so that you do not indicate any bias. As structured interviews are used to collect quantifiable data they are also referred to as ‘quantitative research interviews’. 
By comparison, semi-structured and in-depth (unstructured) interviews are ‘non- standardised’. These are often referred to as ‘qualitative research interviews’ (King 2004). In semi-structured interviews the researcher will have a list of themes and questions to be covered, although these may vary from interview to interview. This means that you may omit some questions in particular interviews, given a specific organisational context that is encountered in relation to the research topic. The order of questions may also be varied depending on the flow of the conversation. On the other hand, additional ques- tions may be required to explore your research question and objectives given the nature of events within particular organisations. The nature of the questions and the ensuing 


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Types of interview
Figure 10.1
Forms of interview discussion mean that data will be recorded by audio-recording the conversation or per- haps note taking (Section 10.5).
Unstructured interviews are informal. You would use these to explore in depth a gen- eral area in which you are interested. We, therefore, refer to these as ‘in-depth interviews’ in this chapter and elsewhere in this book. There is no predetermined list of questions to work through in this situation, although you need to have a clear idea about the aspect or aspects that you want to explore. The interviewee is given the opportunity to talk freely about events, behaviour and beliefs in relation to the topic area, so that this type of inter- action is sometimes called ‘non-directive’. It has been labelled as an informant interview since it is the interviewee’s perceptions that guide the conduct of the interview. In com- parison, a participant (or respondent) interview is one where the interviewer directs the interview and the interviewee responds to the questions of the researcher (Easterby- Smith et al. 2008; Ghauri and Grønhaug 2005; Robson 2002).
We can also differentiate between types of interview related to the nature of interac- tion between the researcher and those who participate in this process. Interviews may be conducted on a one-to-one basis, between you and a single participant. Such interviews are most commonly conducted by meeting your participant ‘face to face’, but there may be some situations where you conduct an interview by telephone or electronically via the Internet or an organisation’s intranet. There may be other situations where you conduct a semi-structured or in-depth interview on a group basis, where you meet with a small number of participants to explore an aspect of your research through a group discussion that you facilitate. These forms of interview are summarised in Figure 10.1. The discus- sion throughout most of this chapter applies to each of these forms. However, the final two Sections (10.7 and 10.8) include specific consideration of the issues and advantages related to the use of group interviews and focus groups and to the use of a telephone and Internet-mediated interviews as an alternative to a ‘face-to-face’ meeting, respectively.

Types of questionnaire
The design of a questionnaire differs according to how it is administered and, in particu- lar, the amount of contact you have with the respondents (Figure 11.1). Self-administered questionnaires are usually completed by the respondents. Such questionnaires are administered electronically using the Internet (Internet-mediated questionnaires) or intranet (intranet-mediated questionnaires), posted to respondents who return them by post after completion (postal or mail questionnaires), or delivered by hand to each respondent and collected later (delivery and collection questionnaires). Responses to interviewer-administered questionnaires are recorded by the interviewer on the basis of each respondent’s answers. Questionnaires administered using the telephone are known as telephone questionnaires. The final category, structured interviews (sometimes known as interview schedules), refers to those questionnaires where interviewers physically meet respondents and ask the questions face to face. These differ from semi- structured and unstructured (in-depth) interviews (Section 10.2), as there is a defined schedule of questions, from which interviewers should not deviate.

Two types of observation as well

* Observation is a somewhat neglected aspect of research. Yet, it can be rewarding and enlight- ening to pursue and, what is more, add considerably to the richness of your research data. It can even be fun, as the introductory example illustrates. If your research question(s) and objec- tives are concerned with what people do, an obvious way in which to discover this is to watch them do it. This is essentially what observation involves: the systematic observation, record- ing, description, analysis and interpretation of people’s behaviour. 
The two types of observation examined in this chapter are very different. Participant obser- vation (Sections 9.2–9.4) is qualitative and derives from the work of social anthropology early in the twentieth century. Its emphasis is on discovering the meanings that people attach to their actions. By contrast, structured observation (Sections 9.5–9.6) is quantitative and is more concerned with the frequency of those actions. 
A common theme in this book is our effort to discourage you from thinking of the various research methods as the sole means you should employ in your study. This is also true of observation methods. It may meet the demands of your research question(s) and objectives to use both participant and structured observation in your study either as the main methods of data collection or to supplement other methods.